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Topic: [5e] So it's been a few years since I made one of these. How'd I do? (Read 515 times)

Admittedly, I've been pestering folk here off and on to get help with this guy. The general concept is a merc who, after a string of increasingly sketchy and nasty jobs, took advantage of the fact that his unit was more or less wiped out to 'disappear' himself and head off-grid to get clear of the mess. I KNOW I took no negative properties, I can't find any that aren't super subjective (allergies, etc), don't apply (Magic/Tech stuff) or seemingly impossibly crippling. any and all critiquing would be welcome, just try not to burn my face off...

And no- he's not finished. I just want to know if I should wrap him up, or if I'm totally off course.

Sorry for the spam but I can't seem to figure how the hell spoiler tags work here.

« Last Edit: (03:39:18/09-02-17) by Tassyr »

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"There's a reason Johnsons are named what they are. They'll try and fuck you at some point, no doubt about it." -Camulus

Mechanically, he has issues. But this is also going to depend on how optimized other players are and what books you are working with.You are looking at 18 dice for your primary weapons which is solid.

Willpower 2 is bad. I wouldn't run with less than 3 and preferably 5. Also, agility is, far and away, the most important attribute and you don't have any increases there. I also don't believe I would take intuition over agility as my max stat.

Skill wise, you really don't need automatics plus pistols. Drop pistols and get a machine gun type pistol (name is escaping me, I just woke up). Likewise you don't need clubs, blades and unarmed pick one (and if you pick blades maybe get 1 point of unarmed). You have a lot of skill points and it kind of feels like you spent a lot just to spend them, maybe skills could come down a priority and bump something else up.

Your initiative is mediocre for a combat character, you will only have 2 passes something like 40% of the time.

Your qualities aren't great but I don't know what I would take in your place either. I will let someone else make suggestions here.

Your survivability may be your greatest weakness. Your soak dice pool is lower than I would expect from a Samurai. Orthoskin would help out a lot for relatively cheap.

It may seem like I took you to task for a lot of stuff, but honestly most of it is trivial. The only very important change would be willpower to 3+.

Mechanically, he has issues. But this is also going to depend on how optimized other players are and what books you are working with.You are looking at 18 dice for your primary weapons which is solid.

Willpower 2 is bad. I wouldn't run with less than 3 and preferably 5. Also, agility is, far and away, the most important attribute and you don't have any increases there. I also don't believe I would take intuition over agility as my max stat.

Skill wise, you really don't need automatics plus pistols. Drop pistols and get a machine gun type pistol (name is escaping me, I just woke up). Likewise you don't need clubs, blades and unarmed pick one (and if you pick blades maybe get 1 point of unarmed). You have a lot of skill points and it kind of feels like you spent a lot just to spend them, maybe skills could come down a priority and bump something else up.

Your initiative is mediocre for a combat character, you will only have 2 passes something like 40% of the time.

Your qualities aren't great but I don't know what I would take in your place either. I will let someone else make suggestions here.

Your survivability may be your greatest weakness. Your soak dice pool is lower than I would expect from a Samurai. Orthoskin would help out a lot for relatively cheap.

It may seem like I took you to task for a lot of stuff, but honestly most of it is trivial. The only very important change would be willpower to 3+.

Hey, that's why I tossed him in here! The big thing that makes me flinch is- I can make a super-focused sammie easy. But then they turn into a living gun or living blade, and I end up feeling about as useful as... well, a gun. So I tried to diversify him a bit. If I did tweak him to make him more survivable and less skilled (Swapping priority between skills and resources would be the easiest way, to be fair) what skills would -you- consider critical? Aside from, natch, his weapons.

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"There's a reason Johnsons are named what they are. They'll try and fuck you at some point, no doubt about it." -Camulus

Athletics, for one point (takes care of running and gymnastics). One point in either acting or influence perhaps.

But these are -group- points, not singles.

Also I can't make the attributes work. I just can't. There's literally not enough points, unless I'm being seriously stupid. I need, to make a sammie, Agility, Strength, Body, Will, AND reaction to be high.

All that's f*cking left is Charisma and Logic. So... how the hell? Even if I redo him and try to go with cyberware to overcompensate for everything, I end up with this mess of "not enough f*cking points.*

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"There's a reason Johnsons are named what they are. They'll try and fuck you at some point, no doubt about it." -Camulus

And yes, it does become difficult to work in attribute points. If you went hacker or face you'd probably have to give up some of your strength in favor of the necessary mental attribute. It just depends what you want out of the character. I'll also point out that it is much easier to do with sum to 10.

Oh, I know that it is. I like the way that works. But that's not what the GM allowed in this game, so I'm not using it.

Just for my sanity. How would YOU distribute the attrib points? And would it be easier if I went resources a, attributes b, skills c and cybered him up to the gills? As it is I was going to try and keep it at attributes a, then switch so I have resources b and skills c so I can give him level 2 wired reflexes. (MAN I wish that any of the other initiative stuff worked worth a damn.)

« Last Edit: (14:02:49/09-02-17) by Tassyr »

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"There's a reason Johnsons are named what they are. They'll try and fuck you at some point, no doubt about it." -Camulus

Max a weapon skill, sneaking, and perception. Use remaining points for a secondary weapon, some social, and perhaps gymnastics or a pilot skill. One point and a spec can go a long way on a high attribute/ware character. Use karma to buy a point for other things you want or cant default on, like palming.

Attributes. Max agility. Get reac/int to 5. Get everything else to at least 3 (mechanically you can dump Logic lower if you are ok with it), keep body/will odd numbers.

Use resources to boost initiative and agility, and then anything else you want (including a datajack).

Get edge to 2 with karma.

It can feel weird to have a specialized character, but the system is really built to go tall at chargen and widen out later, even though that is not how people tend to live their lives. Use qualities, contacts, knowledge skills, cool named gear, etc. to more personalize your character. Trying to do it with active skills/attributes will leave you with a character that has a hard time being good at its job.

It also tends to be generally easier to have higher attributes (natural and augmented) than skills. Ex. Getting your agility 3 higher gives +3 dice to all agility linked skills. So your agi 7 (10) character defaults with 9 dice and with 1 rank rolls 11. For a lot of secondary skills this is more than plenty, plus you have a high base attribute for your big dice pool (shooting). This is much more efficient than having agility 6 and putting 3 skillpoints into every agility skill.

As shadowcat says, con and/or etiquette work well. Having four dice gives you a solid chance of a hit when you need one (or you can buy one if your GM allows) with a low risk of a glitch/crit glitch given the amount of dice.

Your template is a really nice start, just could be tweaked with some optimization. You could go Resources A Attributes B too if you like a version better like that.

I'd worry less about soak (beyond your armor) but that's just me. If you have Intuition 5, Reaction 5 (9) [with wired reflexes 2 an reaction enhances 2], and Agility 7 (10) [probably with used Muscle Toner 3], and the Agile Defender quality, your regular defense pool is 14 dice, and you can get 24 if you go full defense. WIth that kind of dice, you can likely dodge even the most accurately shot weapons. With your initiative, you will likely have 3 passes, so even if you go full defense, you still have 2 passes to make attacks.

And don't forget, your character will grow! Have a wishlist for skills/gear/'ware. Starting characters are experienced shadowrunners--they should have what they need to be competent enough at what they do to get hired for a shadowrun, but they definitely are not the best in the biz yet. You don't need everything from day one, you just need to be able to hit the ground running, survive, and get paid, not necessarily in that order.

As shadowcat says, con and/or etiquette work well. Having four dice gives you a solid chance of a hit when you need one (or you can buy one if your GM allows) with a low risk of a glitch/crit glitch given the amount of dice.

Your template is a really nice start, just could be tweaked with some optimization. You could go Resources A Attributes B too if you like a version better like that.

I'd worry less about soak (beyond your armor) but that's just me. If you have Intuition 5, Reaction 5 (9) [with wired reflexes 2 an reaction enhances 2], and Agility 7 (10) [probably with used Muscle Toner 3], and the Agile Defender quality, your regular defense pool is 14 dice, and you can get 24 if you go full defense. WIth that kind of dice, you can likely dodge even the most accurately shot weapons. With your initiative, you will likely have 3 passes, so even if you go full defense, you still have 2 passes to make attacks.

And don't forget, your character will grow! Have a wishlist for skills/gear/'ware. Starting characters are experienced shadowrunners--they should have what they need to be competent enough at what they do to get hired for a shadowrun, but they definitely are not the best in the biz yet. You don't need everything from day one, you just need to be able to hit the ground running, survive, and get paid, not necessarily in that order.

I'm still tweaking him but I tried out the 'drop attrib to 3' and chromed him to hell and back as a sort of experiment. I'm torn now. He's got -more- money post-chrome, far better combat stats, more armor, and more survivability. The only thing that slipped at all were a few of his noncombat abilities. Indecision, indecision! [edit, that was a dumb typo. Somehow 3 became 8?]

« Last Edit: (09:56:41/09-05-17) by Tassyr »

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"There's a reason Johnsons are named what they are. They'll try and fuck you at some point, no doubt about it." -Camulus